Is there a way I can access the individual legend items (Name and symbol) from a existing mapServer? I am comfortable building the legend, I just need to know how to access the layers' symbols which I will then append to a legend dialog.

I should also mention that I am avoiding using DOJO and using pure javascript and jQuery.

stu... this sounds great. let me hack away at this for a while and see how it goes
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snowgageMar 7 '13 at 22:16

A couple of things. One, don't use pretty=true as it's unnecessary and uses extra server resources. Secondly, you can get at a layer's symbol by getting render.symbol or an array from renderer.infos[].symbol. But keep in mind the map creator may have used a 'SimpleMarkerSymbol', 'SimpleCircleSymbol' etc.
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Jim WhartonJan 14 '14 at 20:10